


lineaments of Desire

by sea_changed (foxlives)



Category: Society of Gentlemen - K. J. Charles
Genre: Humiliation kink, Kink Negotiation, Loud Sex, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Post-Series, Relationship Negotiation, Yuletide Treat, feelings with porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 02:17:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17112563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxlives/pseuds/sea_changed
Summary: The two of them were a problem, Silas thought, never going to be fully solved.





	lineaments of Desire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [labocat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/labocat/gifts).



> I'm not your assigned writer, I was just reading through Yuletide letters and was inspired by yours. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Takes place post-series but pre- _A Private Miscellany_.

The cold outside was a brittle, raw kind; inside Arrandene it was a tamer, draftier variety, the old house heated best it could be. Silas's room, small and at the top of the house, kept heat better than most; under the heavy counterpane, Dominic’s body warm under his, Silas could hardly remember what cold felt like.

Dominic made a sound in his throat, twisting against Silas’s hold on his wrists. It was deep into the night, one of the nights, intoxicatingly frequent, when Dominic contrived to stay with him. In London, it was already almost too easy for Dom to find a way to spend a night in the house; here, in the country, his presence unquestioned and the servants painfully discreet, Silas was afraid he was getting used to Dom's presence in his bed.

Dominic was still together enough to try and stay quiet, making only small, choked sounds as Silas moved inside him. Silas told himself that he’d lived two years on seeing Dominic once a week and could live plenty more on just that, but it was different, all the same, seeing him with the kind of frequency Silas did now. Being able to sleep next to him and wake up next to him and fuck him in a bed that was fast becoming _theirs_.

The house now was still and quiet around them, muffled by the cold and the dark and the layer of snow outside; when Silas pushed into him again Dominic swallowed back another sound, muffling himself by biting down on the soft skin of his upper arm. That was the smart thing, Silas knew, the silence of the house belying that it was full of people who could be woken by one of Dominic’s cries.

Silas didn’t much want the smart thing, though, not tonight, everyone in the house who could be woken likely too far away to hear, or already aware of exactly what was going on, or under strict orders not to say a word about it. Safety, is what Silas thought he felt, and even if he resented how it was gained he would take advantage of it if he could.

“Go on,” he said then, low in Dominic’s ear. He punctuated it with a particularly hard thrust, and Dominic whined. “You want to scream for it? Go ahead.”

Dominic moaned, turning his face away. Silas squeezed his wrists harder, and fucked into him again, and again. Dominic made a choked sound, writhing underneath him.

“Go on, then,” Silas murmured. “I said, scream for it. Let your Lord Richard hear you. Let him know exactly how you’re getting fucked under his roof.”

He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, exactly, despite that he’d thought it before; he wasn’t sure he wanted to use it, a little too sure of how Dominic would react. And sure enough, Dom jolted underneath him, as if Silas had used his hand on him instead of his words; the sound he made was anguished, as if it were being torn out of him.

Something twisted in Silas’s belly at that. He squeezed his fingers tighter around Dom’s wrists, pushed into him hard as he could. Dom cried out, in surprise and pleasure and pain, well loud enough to carry. 

“Aye, thought you’d take to that,” Silas growled. He was suddenly angry, he thought, like a bolt going through him: at Dom for reacting, at himself for saying it in the first place. At Lord Richard, maybe, sitting somewhere in this hulking house, holding onto a piece of Dom that was never, ever going to be Silas’s.

“Don’t,” Dominic said, breathy and ragged. “ _Please_ don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Silas asked. Dominic made a punched-out sound every time Silas fucked into him now, rolling his hips slightly to welcome Silas’s cock deep inside him: it was infernally distracting. “Don’t tell you to scream for it, the way I know you want? Don’t call you a whore, the way I know you are?” Dominic moaned. “I could fuck you on the dining room table, for all to see, and you’d beg me for it.”

Silas could feel Dominic’s cock throb between them, and he made a high-pitched, almost panicked sound. “No,” Dom said, “ _no_ , oh God, oh Christ--”

“Liar,” Silas growled. “A whore and a liar. You’d take it and you’d love it, because you can’t get enough, can you? You wear the bruises I give you for all to see. You want everyone to know you get fucked hard and rough and you can’t get enough of it.”

Dominic was sobbing out protestations, squirming under him like he was trying to get away and only serving to fuck himself down harder on Silas’s cock. Silas could feel himself start to unravel, anger mixing with and dissolving into need; he shifted the Tory’s wrists to one hand and used the other to grab hold of Dom’s hip, dragging him up to meet every thrust. The angle must have changed just enough, because on the next thrust Dominic really did scream, threw his head back on the bolster and made a sound like he was in agony. Silas was sure he’d spend, but he didn’t, cock still impossibly hard and wet against his stomach.

“Please,” Dominic said between cries, “ _please_ , oh God, please, I can’t, I need,” babbling pleas in between sounds of agonized pleasure. 

“See?” Silas said, his own voice rough. “Knew you’d beg for it eventually. Knew you’d scream out for everyone to hear just how much you need it.”

“Please,” Dominic begged. “Let me--I need--”

“No you don’t,” Silas all but murmured, lost in it, lost in the color high in Dom’s cheeks and the beautiful arch of his throat as he tossed his head back. “You don’t need anything more than this. Go on.”

He punctuated it with a thrust as hard and deep as he could go. Dominic made an unearthly, keening kind of sound and came all over himself, Silas fucking him hard through it. When Dom had finished he went soft and pliable under him, making little moaning sounds as Silas fucked him tender, letting Silas use his body as he would. Silas buried himself in him as deep as he could, eliciting a cry, and spent himself inside Dom, hard, wet pulses that seemed endless, Silas suspended indefinitely in the pleasure of it. 

They lay there after, breathing hard and uneven; bodies pressed together, Silas couldn’t tell for a few moments whose breathing he heard, where his body left off and Dom’s began.

Reality came back soon enough, though. After the haze of pleasure had cleared some, he pushed himself off Dominic, easing out of him. Dom shifted, making a sound in the back of his throat.

His eyes were closed, and he was still breathing raggedly, lips parted slightly as he caught his breath. His limbs were flung where they would, every bit of tension run out of him, and his wrists were marked an angry red. The sight of him made something go tight in Silas’s chest. 

He hauled himself off the bed, and went to the washstand to clean up. When he turned back, Dominic’s eyes were open, watching him.

Silas walked back to the bed, damp cloth in hand. He should hand it over to Dom as he always did, let him clean himself off; there was a hungry thing in Silas’s chest, though, wanting more, wanting everything. _This is what you’ve done to me_ , he wanted to tell him. _Made me want things. Made me want you._

He dragged a thumb through the mess on Dom’s soft belly. Dominic shivered, still watching him.

“Let me, aye?” Silas said then, against his better judgement. He held up the cloth.

“Silas,” Dominic said, and then nothing else. He bit his lip. 

_Yes_ , that meant, when they were fucking, but he wasn’t sure what they were doing now. He ran the cloth up the inside of Dominic’s thigh, experimental, and felt the shiver that ran through his whole body, the way his knee crooked up to give better access.

“Don’t,” Dominic whispered, though, his eyes shut tight again.

Silas hesitated. Normally he wouldn’t; normally he understood what they were doing. Not now. 

“ _Don’t_ ,” Silas asked, “or _Mason_?”

Dominic shook his head. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. “I don’t know,” he whispered finally.

Well, that was clear enough; or rather, unclear enough, that Silas wasn’t going to try anything more. He set the cloth on the rickety table by the bed, within Dom’s reach, and went to pretend to fiddle with something over by the washstand to let Dominic clean himself up in peace.

By the time he turned back, the cloth was discarded on the floor, and Dominic was sitting up against the headboard, knees tucked up to his chest and the counterpane pulled over them. Making himself small, Silas thought, but didn’t know what to do with it. He climbed back on the bed, sat up next to him.

“Silas,” Dominic said, after a bit, “I know that you—I hope you know that this was a game, like the rest of it is a game. What you said tonight, how I—reacted.”

“Ah, Tory.” Silas sighed. “Sometimes I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t think _you_ know.”

Dominic swallowed visibly, and looked away. “Silas--” he said again, and then stopped.

“Look,” Silas said, after a minute, some of his earlier anger filtering back. “You don’t got to know where the line is all the time, but you don’t got to lie to me about it either, aye?”

Dominic stiffened beside him. “I’m not,” he said, voice hard enough that it went brittle around the edges. “And I might note that when it comes to being called a liar, I am _very_ clear on where the line rests.”

“All right, Tory,” Silas said, “wasn’t trying to have a go at your honor. Only,” and he let out a breath, not really sure he wanted to say this. “I know things are complicated.”

“And you continually insist on making them more complicated than they are,” Dominic pointed out. “ _You_ are the one insisting there must be more between Richard and myself than there is. _You_ are the one who brought it up, who used it--”

“Aye, and if I’m using it than there must be something to use.”

Dominic let out a frustrated breath. “I don’t know why this is still at issue. I don’t know why you believe you know better than I do about my own friendships, and I don’t know why--I am at a complete loss as to why--you refuse to take me at my word on the matter.”

“Ah, Dom,” Silas said, feeling the hurt in Dominic’s voice pierce his chest deep, straight through the remnants of his anger. “It’s not that I--” He blew out a breath. “I take you at your word. I do.”

He waited, and after a moment Dominic gave a small nod in acknowledgement. 

“But you got to understand,” Silas told him, “living here in this house, being reminded, all the time, that there’s a whole part of your life that belongs to someone else--” Silas glanced at him, and then away again. “Well, it takes its toll on a man.”

Dom sat with his arms folded over his stomach, his focus on his knees. And still Silas could feel his attention, the way he listened to Silas its own physical sort of thing. He listened to Silas about everything, listened to Silas in a way no one else ever had. _Listen to me now_ , Silas thought. 

“That’s true of anyone,” Dominic said eventually, quietly, his own frustration seeming to have run out of him. “We met already halfway through our three score and ten. There’s plenty of you that doesn’t belong to me.”

Silas shook his head. “It ain’t the same. Most people give their lives out in little pieces, and this one belongs to that lover and this one belongs to family and the other goes to a friend. Not you.” He stopped, swallowed. “You don’t talk about your family. You don’t talk about friends, or the people you work with, or other lovers. You just talk about him.”

When he risked a glance at Dominic, Dom’s expression was open and pained. “I know I do,” he said quietly. “I know. But I don’t do it to hurt you, and I can’t—change my life to take him out of it.”

“I know that, Tory.”

“I know you do,” Dom said. “And I,” and he paused, just slightly, “I know it’s difficult for you, being stuck in this house. In his—in anyone’s—employ.”

“Aye, well. Better than being in Newgate. Or on the gallows.”

“We are both emphatically agreed upon that,” Dom said. He leaned into Silas, pressing their shoulders together. It was a moment before he said, “It won’t be forever, you know. This, being here.”

“Aye, well.” Silas turned over what he was about to say in his head, looked at it from a few different angles; he wouldn’t have said it a year ago, might not have even said it six months ago, but he thought he might try saying it now. “That’s what I’m afraid of. That it won’t. That’ll I’ll go back to my own life--and I want to, don’t get me wrong--but I’ll go back to my own life and I won’t know how to live it anymore, without--” He made a vague gesture, the last word sticking inside him like a rusty part. _You_.

Dominic made a sound that wasn’t exactly a sound, more an exhalation of breath. 

“Don’t--” Silas said, not sure exactly what he was asking for. “I’m only saying.”

Silas knew there was no _only_ about saying it, and knew Dominic knew it too. But Dom didn’t pry at it, the wound Silas had shown him; he only said, “You’re a fool.”

“Aye, thanks.”

Silas knew Dom was smiling without looking at him. “Only a fool would think you unable to live your own life as you please. And only a fool would believe I will not contrive any way to see you that I can.”

“But it won’t be like this.”

“No.”

“Ah, Tory.” Silas turned to him, took his face in his hand: Dominic turned into him, eyes clear and dark. He watched Silas as Silas traced his thumb, light as he could, over the soft line of Dom’s bottom lip. He wanted to say something more, but it was all stuck in his throat, jammed there.

So there was silence for a few minutes, until Dominic broke it, with, “I’d like to say something.”

Silas looked at him, quizzical. “Aye?”

Dom looked uncertain, oddly so. “About earlier.”

Silas gave him a _go on_ kind of look.

Dominic bit his lip, something he only did when teasing Silas or when too lost in his head to notice he was doing it. Silas thought again of lines, and where they were lost. “I don’t--I would rather--” Dominic said, and it was strange, Silas thought, to hear him struggle over his words. His Tory, always with the words to say whatever he thought, struck dumb by this. “I would rather you. . .not use Richard. Mention Richard. While we’re in bed.”

“All right.”

Dom let out a breath, as though just remembering to breathe. “All right?”

“Aye,” Silas said, raising his eyebrows a little, “all right.”

Dominic nodded, short. There was a pause, and then he added, “I don’t mind it in, ah, theory.”

“I know you don’t.”

Dom gave him a brief, sardonic look, the humor in it reassuring. “I mean, I’m not opposed to the. . .concept. Just the--use of actual people. I think.”

“Well, you don’t got to know for sure,” Silas said. “We’ll try these rules, then you tell me if something ain’t working.”

“Right,” Dominic said. “Of course.”

Silas nodded, but they both knew there was no _of course_ about it; they both knew, or at least Silas was strongly aware, that this was the first time Dom had ever said _no_ to anything. 

There was an odd feeling in his chest at it, a little like pride. A little like relief, that he knew now that there was a wall, somewhere, that Dom would run up against, and that he’d tell Silas once he did.

Silas smoothed his thumb over the high delicate curve of his cheekbone. “Right, then,” he said. “Ain’t so hard.”

Dominic let out a shaking breath, but smiled at him, small and slightly crooked. “No. Thank you for that.” 

Silas shrugged a little. “Like I said. You don’t got to know where the line is. Just--tell me, when you see it.”

“Yes.” Dominic leaned into him, and Silas pulled him close. The two of them were a problem, Silas thought, never going to be fully solved; but this was something, maybe, a couple of steps towards a better understanding. And Dom warm beside him was, he thought, plenty answer enough for now. 

The snow outside piled on the window’s sill, and Silas held Dominic to him, content. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Blake, almost; the line is _The lineaments of Gratified Desire._
> 
> ETA: And now that authors have been revealed, you can find me on tumblr [here](https://sea-changed.tumblr.com/) and on Dreamwidth [here](https://sea-changed.dreamwidth.org/).


End file.
